Love and Lust: Private and Amorous Letters of the Civil War
Illustrations. 214 pp., 2009, www.booksurge.com, $16.99. Active libido and lascivious behavior were alive and well during the Civil War. Once again Dr. Thomas P. Lowry provides readers with more than just a peek at the real war that didn't get into the history books -- a peek under the sheets at times. This book is a collection of rich, telling, and at times moving primary source material that explores the Civil War soldier's life in the bedroom or bordello. The letters compiled here reflect sexual longings that are at times rooted in the genuine intimacy of husband and wife as well as in the arena of pure pleasure combined with sexual satisfaction and conquest. Lowry asserts from the start that human sexuality in its entire complex dimensions cohabitates with warfare. Just as much as David and Bathsheba frolicked when ancient Israel was at war, Civil War men and women were no different - human sexuality is part of the human condition. And that is what makes these letters so poignant, even if some cross the bounds of conventional propriety. Take note of the title, too. The word love comes before the word lust. On these pages husbands and wives express the sadness and loneliness of being separated and how that longing for each others' arms and legs is crucial to their marriage. It would be grossly unfair to dismiss this book as a coarse exploration of the steamy side of humanity. These lovers are committed to each other, and their pain of separation comes across quite readily. Hiram Deeds of the 144th New York Volunteer Infantry wrote his wife, Elizabeth thusly, "Don't be afraid to write all for you know how happy I would be to embrace and clasp you as lovingly as I know how indeed I would do the best I could for your comfort and pleasure I of course yearn to sleep with my dear love wife and have her for my bedfellow and have her kiss me sweetly in my mouth and feel in other respects...I wish you could have a chance to make me love you to your hearts content. Oh I wish tonight I might Lie between those nice legs of yours and pillow on that breast while your dear ardent love sent the thrilling throb of sweet sexual love and ardent passion through my body." Later in the letter he apologizes for speaking vulgarly - Victorian conventions playing themselves out. The depth of research that Lowry brings to his work is exceptional as he has mined material previously untapped. With that tapping comes a lot of courage on the author's part, for venturing into the sexual predilections of those who came before us is not for everyone - yet without it the story would remain incomplete. And, not unlike our Neanderthal brethren and their cave drawings, soldiers of the Civil War left behind their own particular graffiti, best expressed sexually in pornographic detail on the walls of Blenheim House in Fairfax, Va. These images appear in Love and Lust and help to enhance the story. One will not find much about campaigns, battles and tactics in Lowry's book, but struggle is nevertheless present on these pages, a struggle that plays itself out most intimately in the human heart, mind and soul. Reviewer: James A. Percoco James A. Percoco is the author of Summers with Lincoln: Looking for the Man in the Monuments and is History Educator-in-Residence at American University.
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